


I am you, and you are me

by saferinthestatic



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Bodyswap, Gen, Skyeward if you squint, and trip ends up on the plane anyway, in some happy universe w/o hydra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-12
Updated: 2014-08-12
Packaged: 2018-02-12 20:11:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2123166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saferinthestatic/pseuds/saferinthestatic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fitz and Simmons switch bodies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I am you, and you are me

Ward and Skye enter the lab where Fitz and Simmons are standing at attention, eagerly awaiting their arrival. Ward heaves a steel box onto the lab table.

"Finally," Fitz exclaims, "A new 0-8-4 for us to examine!".

"Yeah," Skye shrugs, "Knock yourselves out." She walks out, almost angrily. Ward watches her go, looking a bit confused.

"Is she upset about something?," he asks Simmons.

"I really have no clue," Simmons says, "Perhaps you could go ask?"

"Yeah, sure, whatever," Ward grumbles. He leaves, lumbering like some sort of sulky caveman.

Simmons smiles. "Now that we have the lab to ourselves, let's see what this is," she murmurs as she and Fitz both reach out for the 0-8-4. Fitzsimmons think that they see a flash in the seconds that it takes them to crash to the floor, unconscious.

Fitz speaks first: "Jemma? Jemma?". He holds his hands to his ears so he can focus on the feminine voice coming out of his mouth: "Jemma?"

"Fitz?" Jemma's voice sounds uncommonly low to Fitz. He places his hands on the floor and pushes himself up to face Simmons, who thought of the same strategy. They face each other and stare. Then they begin to panic.

"You're me," stammers Fitz, "H-how could this have happened"

"Hush, Fitz," Simmons says, trying desperately to calm him down, "The 0-8-4 was probably what caused us to switch bodies. If we touch it again, we should probably switch back."

They both reach for the 0-8-4 once more, but when their fingers brush across it, nothing changes.

"What do we do now?", Fitz asks, while attempting to cross Jemma's arms across her chest, an action he immediately stops when he remembers that she has boobs. That he doesn't want to touch. At all. Ever.

Simmons shrugged and was about to say something more when Skye walked back into the lab.

"Sorry I stormed out on you guys before," Skye says, "I just needed to... why are you staring at me? Is something wrong?"

"It's not obvious?", Fitz scowls, putting Jemma's hands in Jemma's pockets, the only place where he figures it's safe for them to go.

"No-o, it's not, Simmons." Skye looks confused, and Simmons, irrationally, feels bad for upsetting her.

"Don't worry about it, Skye," Simmons assures, "We'll fix it."

"Fix what?"

"But wouldn't she have heard the crash?"

"What crash? Are you two okay?"

"Both of you, stop talking," Simmons shouts. She takes a second to collect herself, almost reaching up to twirl her hair around her finger before she remembers."I'm sorry for losing my temper," she sighs, "Skye, Fitz and I switched bodies"

"Are you kidding me?", Skye steps back and laughs in one fluid motion, "Is this another prank?"

"No," Fitz sulks as he tries really hard not to move Jemma's hands, "It's not a prank. Pranks are funny. This is not funny in the least."

"We think that the occurrence is due to our physical contact with the 0-8-4," Jemma continues, "But when we made physical contact with it a second time, there was no change."

Skye shakes her head. "Is that a fancy science-y way of saying that you switched bodies when you touched the 0-8-4?"

"Yeah, pretty much," Simmons admits.

"Maybe if someone else touches the 0-8-4," Skye wonders, "you'll reswitch"

"Probably not"

"Highly unlikely"

Skye smirks, "I'm gonna touch it"

She strides toward the 0-8-4. Fitz and Simmons make moves to stop her but Fitz decides that he'd rather be anywhere but Jemma's body and Simmons trips over Fitz/her body when he suddenly stops. Before Skye reaches the 0-8-4, Ward walks back in, accompanied by Trip.

"Skye," Trip says with an easy smile, "Don't you think that maybe you shouldn't touch the glowy box?"

"It's for a good cause," Skye smiles and blinks in what she thinks is an attractive way (she's not wrong), "There's an obvious problem here and I'd thought I'd help."

Ward double takes: "What problem?"

"Oh, you all shouldn't worry about it. We'll fix it." Simmons says with equal measures of panic and reassurance. Fitz thinks that although it's weird to watch himself make Jemma's reassuring hand gestures, it is a nice reminder that she's here going through this with him.

"Come on, Simmons," Skye tilts her head, "How can they possibly make the situation worse?"

"Too many bloody ways to count", Fitz grumps.

"Wait, wait, wait," Trip twirls his hands about like he's rewinding a tape, "Skye, you got Fitz and Simmons confused"

"Yeah," Ward confirms, "You never do that. You had which was which straight before I did"

"Technically, it's "who was who"" Fitz interjects, using finger quotes where necessary, ""Which was which" is dehumanizing"

"Yeah, Ward," Skye smirks. "I'm right about who is who, though"

Trip makes a confused face, "Is this some elaborate prank on the newbie?"

"If it is, Skye," Ward warns, "Please stop"

"It's not a prank, Trip," Skye assures him, "They've switched bodies"

During this conversation, Skye fakes wandering over to the 0-8-4 and pokes it. Ward gasps and steps back for a second, concerned about Skye's well-being. Trip continues to look adorably confused. Skye glances back at Fitz and Simmons, as Ward pushes past them to check if Skye's okay.

She asks, "Any change?"

"No," Simmons says, "and you didn't need to do that."

"Skye," Ward breathes, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Skye sighs, "A bit disappointed that I couldn't help Fitzsimmons, though"

Coulson strides in, "They're very smart scientists, Skye. I'm sure they don't need your help. However, I do need help tracking down various persons of interest in this case, and that is what you do. Go upstairs to the holotable and see what you can dig up"

"But A.C."

"No buts, young lady," Coulson interrupts, "March."

Skye sighs, "Sorry guys," and proceeds upstairs sorrowfully, like some puppy caught scratching up the furniture.

Coulson turns to the rest of the team: "Now what was Skye talking about?"

Simmons catches on to Fitz's desperate look and interjects: "Don't worry about it, sir. We can handle it in-house. If you would please escort Agents Trip and Ward out?". Fitz is infinitely grateful for their partnership-fueled emotional connection: everything's messier with nonscientists tramping around the lab.

Trip smirks, "Now I see it."

"See what?"

"Don't worry about it," Fitz sputters, "Can you all just leave now?"

"Shh, shh," Simmons works on calming Fitz down, "I agree, you all should probably leave" Fitz collapses under the stress, his only relief being the fact that Jemma was following him down. He knows it's selfish, but he can't help breathing in her sweet, kind, presence.

Ward gently approaches the collapsing scientists, "Skye said that Fitz and Simmons had switched bodies."

"How fascinating," Coulson comes to stare, "Is that true?"

"So what if it is?," Fitz demands, "Does it give you the right to stare at us like we're monkeys in a bloody menagerie?"

"Yep," Trip affirms, "They've definitely switched bodies. Simmons never uses monkeys as a reference point, that's more Fitz's shtick." He doesn't approach the human pile and their spectators, instead he leans against the wall and thinks about how much space he'd need if something like that had happened to him. He'd probably need a whole damn airplane. "Give them space, Coulson, Ward. Or if you're going to stand in their space, you can at least help them up." Coulson and Ward ashamedly back up and away from Fitzsimmons.

Coulson asks, "What do you two think caused this?"

"It was definitely the 0-8-4," Simmons states, "But touching it again didn't have any effect."

"Skye touched the 0-8-4 when she was here," Ward tells Coulson.

"She shouldn't have done that," Coulson interjects, "She could have gotten hurt."

"Yes, I know," Ward agrees, "But it didn't have any apparent effect on her so I think she's fine"

May walks into the lab and straight to Fitz and Simmons, where she offers her arms as life rafts. Fitz and Simmons gladly grab her arms and May helps them up.

"So you two have switched bodies," May states. Everyone turns to look at her.

Coulson is the first to get words out of his mouth, "None of the rest of us could tell that right off the bat"

 May shrugs, "Skye told me. She's worried about them"

"Worry isn't going to help anything!", Fitz huffs, "Do you know what you can do to help? You can leave. Let us get back to our-"

Before Fitz could finish his sentence, Fitz and Simmons collapsed once again, losing consciousness. When they woke up, the rest of the team was standing over them, even Skye. Simmons has the impression that Skye may have pushed Ward and Trip out of the way to check up on Fitz and herself, that impression not diminished when the conversation, nay, argument, that Skye and Ward are having reached her ears.

"You're supposed to be doing RESEARCH-"

"Well, you all are useless in a crisis! Besides, you couldn't tell Fitz and Simmons apart before I JOINED this team!"

"What would you do to help? Hack something?"

Jemma covers her ears and shouts "Shut up!" as loud as she possibly can. Her teammates immediately stop talking, as if it were them who had passed out.

Jemma continues, "I'm so dreadfully sorry for shouting like that, but your vocal fervor was increasing the painful pounding in my head, and I would rather yell at you than have you two continue your pointless argument."

"Jemma," Fitz groans, "Are you you again? And am I me again? My head hurts too much to check."

"Yeah!", Skye exclaims, "You guys are back to normal!" She swoops down to the floor and crushes them in a massive hug. She finally lets go when the pair begin to whimper in pain. Meanwhile, May picks up tongs and places the 0-8-4 into a bag. She turns and addresses the group:

“I’ll go reroute the Bus to the Sandbox." As she leaves, Fitz and Simmons immediately begin babbling indignantly:

“Oh, but we could do so much more with the 0-8-4!”

“I could take it apart and see if I could put it back together!”

“I could find an animal and see if human-animal transference is possible!"

Phil Coulson puts his foot down, saying, "Do. Not. Touch. The 0-8-4."

Skye stands up, dragging Fitz and Simmons with her, "Come on guys. Let's go have lunch."

"But-," Simmons exclaims, "There's SCIENCE to be done."

"Yeah," Trip smirks, "And you two are unconditionally forbidden from doing that science until THAT 0-8-4 is off of THIS Bus."

"Ward'll make us sandwiches," Skye asserts, "Right, Ward?"

Ward groans and follows his teammates. Phil smiles at his team as they leave, discussing what sandwiches they would like. He takes a breath, thankful for his job, thankful for his team, thankful for his life.


End file.
